COPT Prices 4M Share Offering

WASHINGTON, DC-Taking advantage of its access to the public markets, local REIT Corporate Office Properties Trust is making a public offering of four million shares that it priced at $33 per share. Underwriters have an option to purchase an additional 600,000 shares during the next 30 days. The end result, COPT says, is that it will net proceeds of either $126.7 million or $145.7 million, depending on whether or not the underwriters' over-allotment option is exercised in full. The offering is expected to close next Wednesday. COPT did not return a call from GlobeSt.com in time for publication.

The company, headed by Randall Griffin, intends to use the proceeds to pay down its credit facility as well as for general corporate operating purposes, according to a release. Wells Fargo Securities, RBC Capital Markets and KeyBanc Capital Markets are the joint book-running managers for this offering.

Unlike some local REITs, such as First Potomac and Pebblebrook Hotel, COPT has not been snapping up acquisitions in any sort of regular fashion. Last year it acquired two class A office buildings on the Capitol Riverfront for a total of $119 million. It also acquired, around the same time, a 233,000-square-foot data center known as Power Loft @ Innovation in Manassas, VA, as well as its assets, for approximately $115 million.

Its strategy is one of asset dispositions, part of a strategic reallocation plan it outlined in a recent Q1 2011 earnings call. The point is to increase its concentration of buildings serving the government and defense industries as well as the data center sector. It plans to increase its percentage of real estate revenues serving such super core customers from 59% currently to 67% at the end of 2013, Griffin said in the earnings call last month. “We also will decrease our exposure to traditional suburban office buildings, which will position us to better weather future economic downturns.”